


nothing without pretend

by malo_malo



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malo_malo/pseuds/malo_malo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gen's a considerate enough husband to come back early from a trip abroad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing without pretend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wildehack (Tyleet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/gifts).



> The title's from Civilians by Wye Oak, which I listened to on repeat when rereading the books. Thanks to my recipient for giving me the excuse to do so. She deserved a much longer fic for that and for her great opinions about them.

She woke, her hand halfway to her dagger before she was even truly conscious. Then, almost in the same breath, she relaxed.

“You aren’t supposed to be back for four more days.”

“I missed my wife,” her husband replied. The sound of his boot hitting the floor followed. Then the other, marginally closer, this time.

Attolia knew that he could move silently enough that she wouldn’t know he was there until his breath was hot on her face. Though after the first time, he was always careful to coax the knives from under her pillow and tuck them into his belt beforehand.

She supposed that his haste made him clumsy. Or he hadn’t wanted her, not expecting someone to be in her bedroom late at night, to panic. Or he hadn’t wanted to repeat the time she’d taken his advice and changed which weapon she went for in case of an attack. She'd held her gun steady, pointed right at his head. So considerate, her husband.

She rolled over to face his side of the bed. The chamber was darker than usual, dim enough that she couldn’t see anything beyond shadows. The normal ones that clustered in the corners and around the hangings, and one that was moving determinedly towards her. Attolia could hear the much prayed for rain striking the roof and shaking the trees in the courtyard. Her arms still ached a little from holding them outstretched in supplication for hours the day before at the temple. She regretted it for a moment, now that it meant that she couldn't even see him by the light of the moon.

She regretted it even further when she remembered the fact that Gen was an indifferent rider. He’d improved from the first time she’d seen him astride, but he was never going to win plaudits for how he handled a horse. The best he could hope for was to be decent enough that nobody commented one way or the other about it. He wasn’t there yet.

Maybe then he wasn’t so considerate. The little twisting back-ways that led up to the city were hard to traverse for even the best of riders, and rain made them almost impossible.

She pictured him thrown from his horse, dead, his face white, splattered with his blood. It wasn’t hard. He’d been brought to her on the point of death too many times. Her fault all of them, even the ones that she hadn't ordered.

This would have been too. He would have been dead because he loved her too much to wait. It was almost laughable, the idea that she could drive someone to that kind of frenzy, except here he was. Home early from Sounis and, from the greater lure, Eddis. She hadn’t had to encourage him by marrying him.

Gen had told her once while they were dancing early in his courtship that he’d wanted to go to university on the peninsula. He’d left unsaid the fact that it had been his ambition after she’d maimed him, but Attolia’s face had flushed with anger anyways. She imagined him somewhere safe, far away, surrounded by books, instead of shrugging off his outer shirt, after daring his horse to murder him.

The bed shifted as he climbed in next to her, finally divested of most of his clothes. She wasn’t sure if he could make out her face clearly in the gloom. Probably. It wasn’t fair, she’d been longing to see his for weeks, and the ache was even stronger now that she wanted reassurance that he was alive, that he was truly there.

“What about the barons?” she asked instead of rebuking him, for what, she wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe for not coming back to her sooner. Or for leaving her in the first place, even though she’d been the one to insist that she shouldn’t go with him.

“Maybe they missed their wives too,” he said.

Almost despite herself, Attolia reached up and smoothed away a lock of hair from his face. It was wet. His whole face was too, now that he was close enough for her assess. Gen was grinning at her, lovesick, and she could feel the corners of her own mouth turn up out of her normal, grave expression despite herself. He was probably going to get the bed linens all soggy. She didn’t care.

He carefully leaned over and kissed her lightly. His mouth was warm on hers for a second before he attempted to break it. She cupped the back of his head and refused to let him, lifting her body to follow him.

She always thought that she had known hunger. It had been so acute early in their betrothal, when she wasn’t sure what she wanted from him except for him to stay, and then later, once he’d shown her how to sneak past her own guard and meet him in secluded places, it had been even stronger. Once she’d figured out what she wanted from him and how to get it. Honestly, she’d wanted fiercely her whole life, but all of that was nothing compared to now.

“Hello,” he said, once she’d let him get away. His body was still tense against hers, his arm lying against her chest. “I was hoping that my lovely wife could help me with my hand.”

Attolia sat up and applied herself to the task immediately. She’d refused, the first time he’d asked her this. Then, when she’d offered to do it a couple of nights after he'd broached the subject, he’d shuddered so hard that she could barely manage it with her own shaking hands.

Now, he was steady while she worked the hook off of him. Thankfully he’d had the sense to use that instead of the fake, wooden hand that he used when he was feeling vain. She almost couldn’t blame him for wearing it around his barons—they’d used to be hers, she knew how they were—but some of them, she was sure, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to kill him when they were in foreign lands and the blame might naturally fall upon Sounsian nationals enraged by having to swear allegiance to Attolia. She wanted him to have every weapon that he could muster.

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Gen said. “Costis will have followed me. Poor Costis, he’ll have to follow me back early tomorrow, so I can pretend to have exercised my kingly prerogative and overslept. It will have to be terribly early, since none of the barons will believe that I could stand to wait so long to arrive after I cut the visit to Eddis so short. They’ve been—”

Attolia brushed her thumb against the calluses on his stump, now that the task was done, before giving him his hook. Gen shivered.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. She kissed him to forestall further questions, and then again to show him the truth in her statement. Then she kissed him because she wanted to kiss him and  assuaging that hunger took a very long time. All of the time left until he had to leave.

Gen was right. He did have to go very early.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said, halfway out the window. “Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone.”

She did try, and while Attolia didn’t fail at very much, she did fail at this.


End file.
